scrib | [S] Avispa: Enter.

You are now AVISPA KUSBIR.

You've just confirmed your SERVER PLAYER and are preparing to ENTER THE GAME. You have absolutely no idea what you're GETTING YOURSELF INTO. Good thing you're SAFE in your HIVE!

Or are you?

Your LUSUS is nearby, you're SITTING ON A PUZZLE PILE, and everything just seems pretty okay! You don't even realize that the possibility of TERRIFYINGLY HORRIBLE WORLD-ENDING METEORS exists. With the CLIENT PROGRAM running, you contact Durian.

-- apiaryCryptonaut [AC] has signed on. --

-- apiaryCryptonaut [AC] began trolling defensiveAlchemist [DA]. --

AC: Ok4y I think th4t... I'm re4dy now, Duri4n!
AC: I'm 4ll set, I... think, to try this!
AC: This is exciting, m4ybe.
AC: I hope it turns... out to be 4... good puzzle to solve!
AC: The g4me 4nd this... entry process, m4ybe, yes.
AC: Yes, so, I'm re4dy!

You sit, happily, waiting. You're in your original hive. Your first hive. Your lusus built a HUGE BEEHIVE hanging from the branches of six very close trees and it became a home for you, for your LUSUS, and for a SWARM OF BEES. Mostly, they're easy to ignore. The PILE OF SKULLS around the base of the trees, though, is IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE. You, your lusus, and the swarm of bees regularly dispatch anyone who roams too close. Unfortunately you all CAN'T BE BOTHERED to clear away the skulls; not to mention that you REALLY LIKE THEM.

In good news, you've got A LOT OF ROOM to work with. The only thing laying around is YOU on your PUZZLE PILE; everything else is tucked away in your HONEYCOMB FETCH MODUS.

Yay.

[OOC: This whole post is, chronologically, before any of Avispa's other posts because this is her actually getting into the game! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I messed up using... my honeycomb modus, oops.

You don't worry about it for long, though, because there is suddenly a glowing green orb floating just above the machine and there's a cylinder within it. You knew there was something inside of it! Looking at the device, you're sure that the wheel was pushing that cylinder up into the lid, so there was only one thing to do!

Swiftly, you spin the wheel on the CRUXTRUDER again. It has the exact effect you would expect and, in a quick movement, the cylinder which is actually a CRUXITE DOWEL makes an arc through the air before landing beside your CRYSTAL SKULL. You take special note to add that back into your HONEYCOMB MODUS but first, you want to talk to Durian. You hop back down to your husktop...

Duri4n, look, did you... see it, did you?
It popped out, it... re4lly did 4nd it

You stop. Your claws settled against the surfaces of your husktop's keys. Your gaze isn't on the chat with Durian, but instead on the CRUXTRUDER.

[ 4:13 ]

It was counting down. It was counting down.

[ 4:10 ]

You made a floating, glowing, flashing, green spiroglobe. Well done.

Staring at that thing hurts your eyes, so you turn to watching Avispa's fiddling with the device. You note that turning the wheel at this point released the cylinder, which probably will serve some kind of purpose.

While she sits down, you SELECT the cylinder and put it back beside Avispa and the cruxtruder. There is no sense letting more things get scattered around, or worse: having Avispa put it in her modus and emptying all that stuff again.

ye5!
you correctly analyzed the lock
im making a note of how it worked for when it5 my turn to deal with thi5 5tuff

She stopped typing to stare. You zoom in as far as the interface lets you.

i5 that counting down
what i5 it counting down to?
did you 5ee any of thi5 with hirune

You can't take your eyes off of the countdown. Just like the meteors, this is death staring you in the face and you know it. It's counting down to when it kills you. What have you done? A soft clunk beside you, however, brings you back to reality. The cylinder. It came out and the timer started. Is it the puzzle?

4:03, Duri4n, 4:01 left.

You quickly step away from your husktop and grab hold of the cylinder, looking at it. What in the world was it? What exactly were you holding? It and the, what, the glowing orb? Neither of the two made sense. But this was solid, the orb wasn't. Perhaps that was something. You'd noticed an oddity with Hirune's when you looked in as a server player. You'd seen something glowing. Something floating.

It was a possibility, and if you wanted a solution you had to at least try. Grabbing hold of the nearest object, conveniently not your husktop but instead your "Over the top" 17x17 cube. You look over it, thankful that it isn't your only one, before you hurl it upwards and into the sprite.

In a flash of light, the sprite changes and takes on a new shape. Still floating, still glowing, still just there... the sprite is now a floating 17x17 cube orb. It still doesn't make sense, but something else comes to mind and you grab your husktop.

Duri4n! Duri4n Duri4n Duri4n!
Did the m4chines h4ve... n4mes, these three m4chines?
Wh4t were the n4mes?
Help, ple4se, yes, quick!

[ 3:41 ]

left until what
why didnt that idiot per5on leave detailed note5
why didnt i push you for more about what you did with hirune
dont you know a6out any of thi5

Thinking of those notes, you open memo dumpa11theinfo and refresh your memory with a brief skim of your information dump. In the other window, you can see the spiroglobe transform into some kind of convoluted puzzle. A third window pops up as Avispa trolls you again. You check the Scrib interface menu for the answer to her question.

>- cruxtruder
that5 the one you ju5t u5ed
>- totem lathe
long thin one
>- alchemeter
low flat one
avi5pa i think that you ju5t to55ed the cube into the kernel5prite
the thing youre 5uppo5ed to >- prototype -<
hopefu11y that change wa5 prototyping
and there5 a new item i can deploy for free 5o we might 6e doing the right thing5

There are simply too many insufficiently defined terms and too few instructions for you to feel certain about any chance of success in this venture. You DEPLOY the PRE-PUNCHED CARD on top of her husktop.

There's no time there's no time there's no time there's no time. Yet, you make time. You make it a point to read what Durian is telling you. This is what you need to know. You need to know so you can not die. It's counting down and you have to beat the clock.

[ 3:17 ]

As much as you want to stop it, you can't. You can't stop it, you can't end it, you can't do anything else but stare in horror as you think. There are so many pieces missing, so many things unexplained, but you were doing things and figuring things out. Things were happening.

Ok4y cruxtruder, totem l4the... 4nd 4lchemeter, yes, these.
4nd 4 kernelsprite, m4ybe.
It's 4 cube now... it's different, something h4ppened.
I guess th4t's prototyping!
But the m4chines, m4ybe.
The m4chines 4re import4nt.

As you ponder the machines, their purposes, their uses, a new thing appears. A card with holes punched into it. It settles upon your husktop and you stare for a moment before shaking your head. This isn't what you need. What you need is the first puzzle piece you were given. You have three machines. A process. Three machines... but everything came in fours. Three machines with a fourth thing.

You decide to worry about the fourth part later as you move to grab the cylinder, the cruxite dowel. In hopes that your guess is correct, because it seems to fit in one machine and not the other, you equip the TOTEM LATHE with your GREEN CRUXITE DOWEL and stare. It's not doing anything. You glance back at your husktop, the card, and the timer.

[ 2:48 ]

You're wasting time panicking. You have to act. You have to survive. You have to you have to you have to you have to. You quickly analyze the TOTEM LATHE, searching for SOMETHING you can do, something you can- a slot. Why would there be a slot-

You make a sound. The sound is as much a mix of surprise and happiness as it is of disappointment and frustration; there's not quite an adequate word to describe it, but accompanying the sound is your movement to grab that PRE-PUNCHED CARD. You're going to shove it in the slot and use the machine, and that's that. You hope you're doing the right thing, and you do take a second to glance at your chat window on your husktop. Durian's helping, after all!

[S] Avispa: Enter.

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